LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville Metro Council members are considering an ordinance that would create a safety buffer zone at healthcare facilities, including the city’s only abortion clinic.
Savannah Trebuna is a community organizer with the Louisville Safety Zone campaign and has worked as a clinic escort at EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville.
She called the proposed legislation "long overdue."
"Protesters harass people, they follow very closely, they violate their personal space," she said.
Under the proposed ordinance, no one could create an obstruction within a 10-foot buffer zone outside the clinic.
More than 50% of patients from the clinic "reported protestors as a challenge to receiving healthcare," according to a study referenced in the ordinance.
"Protesters over the years have become more emboldened to violate personal space for patients and it has caused a huge cluster on public sidewalk, making this area very volatile to (not) only patients, protesters, but just pedestrians coming onto Market Street," Trebuna told Spectrum News 1.
Councilwoman Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-District 8, is one of the sponsors of the ordinance.
She said it can be dangerous outside the clinic as patients make a three-minute walk from the parking garage.
Councilman Robin Engel, R-District 22, who disputed the area was dangerous, is opposed to the ordinance.
The issue "goes to the heart of the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech for sidewalk counseling," he said.
"If you ask a sidewalk counselor that, it is the last words of a sidewalk counselor that often times, about what they can do to help the life of that unborn child if that mother gave birth, and that is free ultrasounds, free housing, and the care of that child and that mother," Engel said. "That is what that last word says to those individuals walking in and a buffer zone would disrupt that dramatically."
The ordinance passed out of committee last week by a 5-2 vote.
It is expected to go before the full council in a few weeks, Armstrong said.